Allegories; Fantasy fiction; Historical fiction; Middle Ages -- Fiction
And Jurgen saw and heard and regarded the departing trio ruefully.
It seemed to him incredible the world should be going on just as it
went before he ventured into the Druid forest.
He paused before a crucifix, and he knelt and looked up wistfully.
"If one could only know," says Jurgen, "what really happened in
Judea! How immensely would matters be simplified, if anyone but knew
the truth about You, Man upon the Cross!"
Now the Bishop of Merion passed him, coming from celebration of the
early mass. "My Lord Bishop," says Jurgen, simply, "can you tell me
the truth about this Christ?"
"Why, indeed, Messire de Logreus," replied the Bishop, "one cannot
but sympathize with Pilate in thinking that the truth about Him is
very hard to get at, even nowadays. Was He Melchisedek, or Shem, or
Adam? or was He verily the Logos? and in that event, what sort of a
something was the Logos? Granted He was a god, were the Arians or
the Sabellians in the right? had He existed always, co-substantial
with the Father and the Holy Spirit, or was He a creation of the
Father, a kind of Israelitic Zagreus? Was He the husband of
Acharamoth, that degraded Sophia, as the Valentinians aver? or the
son of Pantherus, as say the Jews? or Kalakau, as contends
Basilidês? or was it, as the Docetês taught, only a tinted cloud in
the shape of a man that went from Jordan to Golgotha? Or were the
Merinthians right? These are a few of the questions, Messire de
Logreus, which naturally arise. And not all of them are to be
settled out of hand."
Thus speaking, the gallant prelate bowed, then raised three fingers
in benediction, and so quitted Jurgen, who was still kneeling before
the crucifix.
"Ah, ah!" says Jurgen, to himself, "but what a variety of
interesting problems are, in point of fact, suggested by religion.
And what delectable exercise would the settling of these problems,
once for all, afford the mind of a monstrous clever fellow! Come
now, it might be well for me to enter the priesthood. It may be that
I have a call."
But people were shouting in the street. So Jurgen rose and dusted
his knees. And as Jurgen came out of the Cathedral of the Sacred
Thorn the cavalcade was passing that bore away Dame Guenevere to the
arms and throne of her appointed husband. Jurgen stood upon the
Cathedral porch, his mind in part pre-occupied by theology, but
still not failing to observe how beautiful was this young princess,
as she rode by on her white palfrey, green-garbed and crowned and
a-glitter with jewels. She was smiling as she passed him, bowing
her small tenderly-colored young countenance this way and that way,
to the shouting people, and not seeing Jurgen at all.
Thus she went to her bridal, that Guenevere who was the symbol of
all beauty and purity to the chivalrous people of Glathion. The mob
worshipped her; and they spoke as though it were an angel who
passed.
"Our beautiful young Princess!"
"Ah, there is none like her anywhere!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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